Denali / Mt. McKinley

We had to have our luggage outside the door by 7 am this morning, which means we were up at 6am. I hope we get to sleep late sometime on this trip. We had a buffet breakfast, but it was not good at all. It was cold and had no taste. We had to be in the lobby at 11:15 to catch the bus to take us to the train. We boarded the train and headed for Mt. McKinley. It was a 4:40 minute train ride and were in the last car of the train. With the top being all glass it got very warm in the car and we worked on getting a tan. We ate lunch on the rail car and both of us had burgers. They were really good. We did see some caribou and some trumpet geese. We arrived at the train depot at Mt. McKinley at 4:45pm and found our bus would not start. So we were loaded on to other buses for a 1 hr bus ride. The views of the mountain were spectacular. Once at the lodge, we dropped our gear and headed for dinner. Since it was my birthday, we decided to eat at the steak place. I had a Denver cut steak with a honey bourbon sauce and Beth had a NY Strip with a peppercorn sauce. They were very tender and had great favor. We had cheesecake and a triple berry pound cake for dessert. After dinner, we began doing laundry. The saying is true, the mosquitoes are big here and do bite hard. It took us a couple of hours to finish, but all the clothes are clean, packed, and ready for the 7am pickup for tomorrow. It was a fantastic site to see the sun set behind the mountain at 11pm. It is so weird to come out of the restaurant at 8pm and have to put sunglasses on. We seem to be getting used to the cold weather as we did not have 4 layers of clothes on today. Off to the ship tomorrow for the 7 day cruise part.